and the effects I made them try on their different instruments, together with a little instinct, did the rest for me."[69]

[Footnote 68:  One may judge of this instinct by one fact:  he wrote the overtures of Les Francs-Juges and Waverley without really knowing if it were possible to play them.  “I was so ignorant,” he says, “of the mechanism of certain instruments, that after having written the solo in D flat for the trombone in the Introduction of Les Francs-Juges, I feared it would be terribly difficult to play.  So I went, very anxious, to one of the trombonists of the Opera orchestra.  He looked at the passage and reassured me.  ‘The key of D flat is,’ he said, ’one of the pleasantest for that instrument; and you can count on a splendid effect for that passage’” (Memoires, I, 63).]

[Footnote 69:  Memoires, I, 64.]

That he was an originator in this direction no one doubts.  And no one disputes, as a rule, “his devilish cleverness,” as Wagner scornfully called it, or remains insensible to his skill and mastery in the mechanism of expression, and his power over sonorous matter, which make him, apart from his creative power, a sort of magician of music, a king of tone and rhythm.  This gift is recognised even by his enemies—­by Wagner, who seeks with some unfairness to restrict his genius within narrow limits, and to reduce it to “a structure with wheels of infinite ingenuity and extreme cunning ... a marvel of mechanism."[70]

But though there is hardly anyone that Berlioz does not irritate or attract, he always strikes people by his impetuous ardour, his glowing romance, and his seething imagination, all of which makes and will continue to make his work one of the most picturesque mirrors of his age.  His frenzied force of ecstasy and despair, his fulness of love and hatred, his perpetual thirst for life, which “in the heart of the deepest sorrow lights the Catherine wheels and crackers of the wildest joy"[71]—­these are the qualities that stir up the crowds in Benvenuto and the armies in the Damnation, that shake earth, heaven, and hell, and are never quenched, but remain devouring and “passionate even when the subject is far removed from passion, and yet also express sweet and tender sentiments and the deepest calm."[72]

[Footnote 70:  “Berlioz displayed, in calculating the properties of mechanism, a really astounding scientific knowledge.  If the inventors of our modern industrial machinery are to be considered benefactors of humanity to-day, Berlioz deserves to be considered as the true saviour of the musical world; for, thanks to him, musicians can produce surprising effects in music by the varied use of simple mechanical means....  Berlioz lies hopelessly buried beneath the ruins of his own contrivances” (Oper und Drama, 1851).]

[Footnote 71:  Letter from Berlioz to Ferrand.]